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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27996150">Please Stay (but not like this)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drunk Michael, Drunkenness, Hallucinations, Lost Decade (Roswell New Mexico), Love Confessions, M/M, Sad, Swearing, ambiguous ending, unhappy but in love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:48:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,329</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27996150</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Christmas that they were twenty-two, Michael had opened a bottle of vodka as soon as the sound of Alex's truck faded away. By mid-afternoon, he'd started to hallucinate, and by early evening, he imagined that Alex had come back to him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Please Stay (but not like this)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michael had lost count of the number of times Alex had left him. He only knew, by this point, that it was enough that their whole routine was second-nature to them both.</p>
<p>Just before dawn, when the warm body wrapped around him first started to stir, Michael would wake up. In their earliest years, he tried anything to get Alex to stay: chucking insults to provoke him into one of their fiery fight-then-make-up rituals, maybe whispering filthy things into the shell of his ear until he rolled over and kissed him hard, or even - only once, but memorably - tossing all of Alex's clothes out the door into a rainstorm.</p>
<p>Except that none of Michael's tactics could ever prevent the inevitable. Whether it was hours later, once they'd untangled themselves - again - from each other, or just minutes, after a seething Alex had pulled on his still-drenched pants and stormed out (hurling insults over his shoulder all the way) the moment always came.</p>
<p>Out of nowhere, the easy quiet would shift into awkwardness, and when Michael looked at Alex he'd be avoiding his eye. And his chest would feel like it was collapsing.</p>
<p>So now Michael feigns sleep as Alex slides out of his bed, and he listens as he puts on his clothes and brushes his teeth. Then he hears Alex stand for a few minutes by the door, and lets himself hope that maybe he's doubting himself. That he can't make himself leave this time.</p>
<p>So far, Michael's always been disappointed. Alex's soft footsteps come back over to him, and he feels Alex's breath in his hair as he leaves a kiss on the top of his head, or his cheek or his shoulder. It takes every ounce of Michael's self-control not to reach out and pull Alex in at this point: even just to direct him for one last proper kiss.</p>
<p>And then the door clicks closed, and Michael knows he's gone.</p>
<p>The rest of Michael's day is equally instrumental in his post-Alex routine. He tidies the trailer, although Alex has always been meticulously neat, so there's never much more to do than straighten the bedsheets and try not to think too hard about Alex tangled up in them. He cooks himself a proper meal, because Alex always brings ingredients for dinner, and subtly leaves far more in his cupboards when he goes.</p>
<p>Most importantly, Michael distracts himself from the tempting prospect of falling face-first into a whiskey bottle.</p>
<p>That was another rule borne from experience. The Christmas that he and Alex were twenty-two, Michael had opened a bottle of vodka as soon as the sound of Alex's truck had faded. By mid-afternoon, he'd started to hallucinate, and by early evening, he imagined that Alex had come back to him.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>-----------------------------------------------</p>
</div>He hadn't heard the truck pull into the driveway, or even the airstream's door opening. The first he was aware that he was no longer alone was the sound of Alex's soft swearing.<p>Michael spun around, but it just made his vision swim and his stomach roll.</p>
<p>"Jesus fucking Christ, Michael. What've you done?"</p>
<p>Alex was sorting through the empty bottles on the counter. He'd started on vodka, sure, but then he'd drunk anything else he could find in the trailer - how long had he been drinking? Not sure. Maybe he should've eaten something.</p>
<p>He made a noise to that effect, and Alex turned his searching gaze on him. Michael knew he was a mess; he hadn't showered since the night before, and as soon as he'd moved all the liquor he could find to within arm's distance, he'd retreated to the sheets where Alex had left him.</p>
<p>Blearily, Michael tried to figure out what Alex was thinking - he always seemed like the kind of guy with a killer poker face, but Michael had been able to read him like a book since they were teenagers. He'd spent years turning 'understanding Alex Manes' into an art-form.</p>
<p>He looked angry, sure, but underneath it all Michael thought he looked sadder than he'd ever been before. That was how he knew that he was hallucinating, and shit- he really shouldn'tve drunk quite that much, because this was going to hurt like a bitch when he woke up.</p>
<p>When Michael forced his eyes to focus again, Alex was still staring at him, looking more than a little heart-broken himself. He realised with a start that he'd never really answered Alex's question, and screwed up his eyes to avoid that searching glare.</p>
<p>"Y'left. I drank."</p>
<p>Alex swallowed hard, audible in the dense quiet. "Do you always do this?"</p>
<p>Michael forced one eye to open and glared back at Alex. "It's a habit. You leave, I drink. Rinse. Repeat. Makes it... easier." Then he waved over at Alex. "Though it won't work this time."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"S'not going to work. Won't be any easier." Michael let out a harsh laugh. "S'going to hurt like a fucking bitch when I wake up. I've never let myself think you'd come back before. Jesus."</p>
<p>Alex was quiet for a second. "Michael, I <em>am</em> back. I came back, and I can stay. I'll be here when you wake up, and-"</p>
<p>"No." The words came out at nearly a shout, and Alex jumped back a few inches. "No, you don't get to say that. You're making it worse - you'd never say that. You've never come back, and you'd never say that, and you definitely wouldn't be here when I woke up."</p>
<p>Alex turned his face away and scrubbed at his eyes. Michael hadn't even noticed he was crying, and it drove something deep and sharp into his ribcage. Carefully, he curled his arms back around his knees and turned away from Alex.</p>
<p>"Please go away." He said, quietly. Alex let out a ragged breath. "I can't do the goodbye thing twice in a day. S'too much. Please."</p>
<p>He screwed his eyes shut, and stayed very still while he listened to Alex's steps move back towards the door. As always, there was a pause before he turned the handle.</p>
<p>Michael knew it was coming, but it twisted that sharp thing in his chest even more when he felt Alex coming back over to him, and the soft kiss being pressed into his hair.</p>
<p>The very worst bit, he thought, was that it all felt so real. This had happened so many times, his brain clearly knew every tiny detail of the routine. His subconscious knew what Alex's footsteps sounded like, it knew the rustle that his uniform made when he shifted from foot to foot by the door, it knew the smell of his skin and the soft brush of his lips. Even after God-knows-how-much alcohol, it knew how to paint a devastatingly convincing scene. And it infuriated him.</p>
<p>Alex lingered for a second longer than he usually did, his face bowed over Michael's head. He brought a slow hand ghosting down his side, starting at the shoulder that Michael had turned on him, and moving down his arm, feather-light.</p>
<p>If he took his hand, Michael knew he would shatter into a thousand jagged pieces. So he shrugged him off and rolled over to face him, seething. Alex's face was still hovering close, a worried little line fixed between his eyebrows.</p>
<p>There was a moment when everything in Michael was screaming at him to make hallucination-Alex go, to scream until he disappeared and save himself the heartache in the morning which would stretch this piteous ritual into another day (and another day off from work that he couldn't afford.) And then all those voices fell quiet.</p>
<p>He lunged at Alex, injured hand grabbing him hard round the back of the neck and dragging him down with a startled gasp. For a second, there was a stab of fear that this would be the moment the dream ended - that when he reached out to touch, his hand would move straight through - but Alex was solid and warm, and his mouth was wet and unrelenting and as real as anything he'd ever known.</p>
<p>Michael let himself grab at Alex, pulling him closer until he couldn't move under the weight of him, and not letting up for a second, even to take a breath. He was vaguely aware that this was as desperate as he'd ever let himself be around Alex, showing all the soft parts of himself that he usually tried to hide. But the dream-Alex wouldn't know any better. And he wouldn't be able to tell the real Alex, the next time he had leave, just how hungry Michael really was for him; how much he needed him back as soon as he left.</p>
<p>Alex, for his part, was kissing him back as if he wanted him just as much. Yet another crack in the dream. The real Alex had no trouble walking away, time and time again, but if he truly felt the way this Alex seemed to - kissing him open-mouthed, with his hands cradling his face like he was fragile - there would be no way he would have been able to leave at all.</p>
<p>Between frantic kisses, Michael told the vision-Alex as much, and Alex pulled away, panting. He stared at him, wide-eyed for a second, then suddenly Michael was being tugged in again, being kissed like Alex could only breathe through him, and he was muttering into the scant air between them:</p>
<p>"Fucking hell, how can you even - Every time, like this isn't how I feel - Kills me, every fucking time -"</p>
<p>Michael pressed his forehead hard into Alex's, moving his mouth out of reach. Alex made a hurt sound, and Michael's hands flew to his chest, softly touching, soothing, without conscious thought. Anything to stop him sounding like Michael had hurt him.</p>
<p>"You need to go now." Michael said, even as his hands were wandering around to the back of Alex's neck again, gently tracing his buzzed-short hair while his thumbs tickled either side of his windpipe. Alex made the awful wounded noise again. </p>
<p>"No really, I can't do this. Go, and then I can wake up."</p>
<p>Alex made a sound as if to argue, but Michael shushed him with a hand over his mouth. He pleaded with his eyes for him to stop, and eventually he felt the lips under his palm stop moving, and just fall slightly open against the soft skin there.</p>
<p>"I need to sleep this off." He said, mouth drifting closer to Alex's, even with his hand between them. It would be so easy, he thought, just to shift his hand out of the way and replace it with his mouth, shushing Alex just as effectively by going back to that desperate press of lips and teeth, and letting himself fall headlong into the fantasy.</p>
<p>But that was all this was: a fantasy. A beautiful, heart-breaking, alcohol-induced fantasy that was already going to hurt like a kick to the chest when he woke up, even if he ended it now, before he said or did anything else stupid.</p>
<p>Alex's eyes were wide over the top of Michael's hand. He blinked as Michael brought the hand away, but seemed to have learnt that Michael didn't want to hear him say any more.</p>
<p>"Look," Michael said, forcing himself to sit back but unable to remove his other hand from where it was resting over Alex's heart. "I'm so wasted right now, I've conjured this whole scenario, and it's everything- <em>Everything</em>. I've ever wanted, every time you go, but I can't have it. And taking it away in the morning is going to be the worst thing that's ever happened to me, because if I let myself believe that you could stay, this would be the best thing."</p>
<p>Tears were welling up in Alex's eyes again, and his heart was beating hard underneath Michael's palm. That, at least, felt real. The precious nights when Alex stayed, Michael had memorised the sound of that heartbeat.</p>
<p>Alex didn't say anything for a long minute, and Michael wondered if this was where it ended, if this was where his imagination had ran out of steam. But eventually Alex blinked hard, and sat back from Michael with a small frown.</p>
<p>He went back to the door without a word, but just as he turned the handle, he half-turned back towards the bed.</p>
<p>"I won't ever be able to stay forever," he said, softly. "But I've always wanted to. Every time, leaving here is like something's being ripped out of me. I didn't realise it was hurting you the same."</p>
<p>"That's exactly what a hallucination-version of you that loved me back would say."</p>
<p>There was a heavy silence, and Alex nodded to himself.</p>
<p>"I do love you back," he said, stepping out of the doorway into the setting sun. "For the record."</p>
<p>Michael smiled as the door clicked shut. "Yup, he'd say that too."</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>-----------------------------------------------</p>
</div>The next time the real Alex was home on leave, he'd looked like he'd wanted to say something, but Michael hadn't given him the chance, pushing him back against the door with his hands already sliding up under his shirt, and attacking his mouth before he could get any words out.<p>For Michael, the next few days had been about erasing the hallucination entirely - replacing the liquor-induced version of Alex that had told him he loved him with the real, flesh-and-blood one that always left, but always came back all the same.</p>
<p>Whatever Alex had wanted to say when he arrived, he didn't try again. When he left, Michael stared at the whiskey bottle for a long second before flinging it out of the door and into the desert. Never again.</p>
<p>He formed his new post-Alex routine: distract himself from the gaping absence. Tidy the airstream. Cook a meal. Don't drink a drop. And don't let himself think about the next time Alex will be back until he gets the text message from the airport.</p>
<p>"I've just touched down. Are you about?"</p>
<p>And so it goes on.</p>
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